


a distance towards the truth

by puny



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Blood, Detectives, M/M, Mutual Pining, no one dies but there is a body, slight gun violence, x-files au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 06:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16989945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puny/pseuds/puny
Summary: Iwaizumi hasn't always been stuck in a backwoods town. He hasn't always been assigned partner to an insane, intense, inscrutable wackjob who specializes in horrific, unexplainable mysteries and is hellbent on getting to the bottom of them.Every day Iwaizumi tells himself he'll apply for a transfer tomorrow.And yet.





	a distance towards the truth

**Author's Note:**

> hi y'all. this AU popped into my head and fit so perfectly that i couldn't not write it. i hope people still read hq fic........

"Oikawa." 

No response. 

"Oikawa, I'm going out of state for my cousin's wedding next week." 

Nothing. 

"Oikawa, you piece of shit, I will throw you out a window." 

"Rude, Iwa-chan," he says, finally, without looking up. His face is bent low over the desk, a jeweler's loupe pressed to his eye as he squints at a spread of photos. 

"Did you even hear what I said?" 

"Threatened violence to my person, probably." Oikawa's voice has the distracted, even quality that Iwaizumi knows means he's paying no attention whatsoever. 

"I," he enunciates carefully, "will be gone... next... week. Repeat that back to me." 

"Repeat what?" 

"What I just told you." 

"You said to repeat something." 

Iwaizumi's got his arm cocked back to throw the paperweight when Oikawa's voice shifts pitch into something more urgent. "Iwa, c'mere." 

He grumbles but goes, bracing a hand on the desk by Oikawa's head. "What?" 

"Look," Oikawa points, tapping a spot on a photo and offering the loupe to Iwaizumi. "Do you recognize that symbol?" 

The photograph is of a tree, leaning sideways and splintered at the base. It’s blown up in post so the quality is terrible. The spot Oikawa indicates is a small dark smear on the side of the tree, an imperceptible splotch of lines or scratches or something. 

"Yeah," Iwaizumi says flatly. "It's called a spider." 

"Ah-ah-ah!" He holds a finger up, sliding another photo over. "I had Kindaichi blow the picture up even more for me. Take a closer look, ye of little faith." 

The close-up reveals a fuzzy drawing. It looks kind of like a V with smaller Vs stacked inside it; the whole thing is surrounded by a circle. 

"Graffiti," he says. "Local kids scraping their initials into a tree." 

Oikawa shakes his head. "It's burnt in. Branded. And kids? There weren't any kids three miles out into the woods at the landing site two weeks ago." 

He grits his teeth. Not this garbage again. "For the last time, it's not a fucking _landing site,_ it was a fire. Happens all the time, Oikawa. People throw cigarettes." 

"Iwaizumi," Oikawa half-laughs, "forest fires are not usually perfectly circular! And when they are, they don't usually go out by themselves after three hours! And even when they do, they don't leave _irradiated thorium deposits–"_

"Enough," Iwaizumi says firmly. "Traces of thorium. Traces. Faint radioactive fallout is everywhere. I'm tired of hearing about the fucking landing site, and by the time I come back next week you better have forgotten about it." 

Oikawa looks up, paying full attention to Hajime for the first time. "Wait, next week? Are you going somewhere?" 

Iwaizumi doesn't throw him out a window, but he comes pretty close.

––––––––––– 

Later that afternoon Ushijima sticks his head in the office and tells Iwaizumi to get to the morgue stat. Oikawa blows a fat raspberry at the door after it closes, but Iwaizumi's secretly glad they have something, anything, to keep his partner from spiraling down the crazy drain.

"This better be interesting," His partner grumbles in the elevator. He's pissy about being dragged away from his precious photo "evidence" and into a real case. 

"Our job isn't to be interested," Iwaizumi sighs. "It's to investigate crime." 

"Maybe yours is," Oikawa mutters, slumping low against the wall. 

When they get out on the first floor, it’s freezing cold. Iwaizumi shakes off his shivers and pushes into the pathology office. 

"Shouldn't you be working," he says when they get inside. 

"Shh," Hanamaki says, eyeing the fan of cards in his hand. "I'm about to win the pants off of Mattsun. Literally." 

"Ooh!" Oikawa brightens. "Can I play?" 

"No," the forensic pathologists say in unison. Matsukawa shuffles his cards. "Oikawa, you're literally the worst at poker." 

"Mattsun, I hope you lose," he pouts. 

Matsukawa lays his hand down, revealing a flush. Hanamaki groans. "Now I'm on histology duty for a _week._ Oikawa, your presence alone is bad luck, this is your fault." 

Oikawa opens his mouth indignantly, but Iwaizumi's had enough. "We're here to see a body, dickbags." 

"Hey, there's nothing to do." Hanamaki shrugs. "You think this is bad? We lost both our pathology trainees today because they're with the forensics techs, partying it up in the evidence lockers. Things have been slow all week. The weather's just too terrible for anyone to bother getting murdered." 

"Except whoever you're about to show us." 

Hanamaki takes his feet off the desk, getting up. "So demanding.”

"What do you know about it?" Matsukawa asks as they walk towards the morgue. 

Oikawa shrugs. "Practically nothing. Ushiwaka just told us to haul ass over here." 

"Well," Hanamaki says, "buckle up, kiddos." 

Their pathologist friends push through the swinging chrome doors of the morgue. God, Iwaizumi hates this place. The smooth white tile and spotless chrome reeks of preservatives and death. 

Hanamaki grabs a handle, tugging out a long corpse drawer.

"Meet John Doe," Hanamaki says. 

"Rest in peace," Matsukawa adds softly. 

On the brushed steel lies a pale person, or most of one. It’s a man’s body, but it’s missing a head and both arms. 

Oikawa whistles, and Iwaizumi privately agrees. He snaps a pair of gloves on. 

"It isn't pretty," Hanamaki says. "There was some nasty internal bleeding and severe dehydration, even before John here lost half his bits. We’re still fishing for a cause of death." 

"I think I got one for you," Iwaizumi says grimly, holding the corpse's cold mouth open with his gloved fingers. Sometimes he wishes his medical degree was used on the living more often than the dead. 

They turn to look at him. 

"Lesions in the throat. Have you guys analyzed your organ samples yet? I'm guessing the bone marrow was a mess, blood cell count extremely low?" 

Matsukawa glances at Hanamaki. "Nothing yet on marrow or cell count but we’ll run it in a sec. Whatcha think?" 

"Radiation sickness." Iwaizumi takes off his gloves. "Fairly serious, too. I'm pretty positive, but not one hundred. We'll go put out a bulletin, see if we can figure out where he's been that's so toxic. Oikawa, come on." 

"Oh, here." Hanamaki points to a spot on the side of the torso. "For your bulletin. It's pretty much the only identifying mark." 

It's a small dark spot, raised like a brand. A V with smaller Vs nestled inside, enclosed in a circle, the whole thing about an inch and a half across. 

_Perfect,_ Iwaizumi thinks. _Excellent. Just wonderful._

Oikawa says nothing, but Iwaizumi knows without looking that his eyes have lit up with that familiar gleam that promises nothing good.

––––––––––– 

Iwaizumi hasn't always been stuck in a backwoods town. He hasn't always been so wrapped up in his morbid work that he's actually _friends_ with the local police pathologists. He hasn't always been assigned partner to an insane, intense, inscrutable wackjob who specializes in horrific, inexplicable mysteries and is hyperdetermined to get to the bottom of them.

And yet. 

He finishes packing for his cousin’s wedding. He doesn't have his best tie, because fucking Oikawa stole it four months ago and has been pretending he lost it even though Iwaizumi's pretty sure he just won't fess up to getting barbecue sauce on it, but everything else he needs is in the battered old suitcase. It's the same one that held all his possessions when he'd first flown in three years ago. He'd been holding it when he'd stepped off the plane and decided he hated this town. He hadn't when he decided he hated his partner. That came later.

––––––––––– 

He remembers the day he got the assignment in crystal detail.

"Iwaizumi!" The chief was all fake fatherly cheer when Iwaizumi entered. "Sit down, sit down, I have good news, Hajime." 

"Don't call me that," he said politely. "Sir." 

"Well," Chief said, affronted. "All right. As I'm sure you know, this is regarding your new job assignment." For the first time, he glanced at a man sitting in the other chair, someone important-looking whom Iwaizumi didn't recognize. 

"Yes, sir." 

"It's a lovely outpost, really kind of rural. You probably won't have a lot on your plate. Well, haha, that isn't exactly true. This man is going to be your partner." He slid a file across to Iwaizumi, laying open to reveal a agency-standard ID picture of a handsome young man who was smiling brilliantly. 

"Are you indicating that this will be something other than a standard partner assignment?" He asked, brows raised. The assignment should've been random. Iwaizumi knew Bureau procedure like the back of his hand, and this wasn't it. 

"Well, sort of." Chief leaned forward in his seat. "You understand, Oikawa Tooru has something of an reputation with the Bureau. He's a bit of an eccentric, really. Fascinating man. Our issue is that lately he's been– intensifying his investigations, you could say. A little overenthusiastic. Posing more of a potential problem to us than a potential asset." 

"I don't understand," Iwaizumi said bluntly. "Where do I come in?" 

"Keep him in check." 

This had come from the other man, the one sitting in the corner. His face was heavily lined and his voice rough. He was smoking. 

"In check?" 

"We need a skeptic," said the Other Man. "A voice of reason. To encourage some of his work. To discourage the rest." 

Iwaizumi narrowed his eyes. "What exactly is this work?" 

"Iwaizumi," said Chief, "I take it you've heard of the X Files." 

"No, sir." 

"Oh! Goodness! Well, you'll know soon enough, anyway. You fly out tonight. I'm sure Oikawa will be more than happy to explain everything. Here." He'd pushed the thick file towards him. "Thanks for your time, Agent." 

Iwaizumi knew when he was being dismissed. "Chief," he said, hand on the doorknob. "Am I being punished for anything?" 

"Ha! No, my dear agent, of course not. We just trust you. This is an important posting. He's fascinating, really. Quite a character. I'm positive you'll make us proud." 

The Other Man had just smoked, staring impassively. 

"Thank you, chief." Iwaizumi turned and left, eyes on his back.

––––––––––– 

The day before he leaves for the wedding they drive out to the suburbs. He watches Oikawa flirt heavily with a witness, for fun and profit (they get the phone numbers they'd needed), but it makes Iwaizumi go cold and furious for no reason he wants to name.

He gets home and washes the bad taste out of his mouth with lukewarm scotch. 

Iwaizumi doesn't get it. He can't stand the guy. Oikawa's always listening to his Walkman at his desk, bumping his head along to some tinny tune that always gets stuck in Iwaizumi's head. He lives on greasy Chinese takeout and street tacos and cheeseburgers and always steals Iwaizumi's french fries. He swears he never works out but his muscles are lean and firm along the length of his bones, and he likes to ignore dress code and show up in jeans that fit snug around his thighs or soft-looking sweaters that tuck close to his slim waist or shirts rolled up to his elbows showing off his forearms and his wide strong hands and sometimes Iwaizumi worries that if he has to spend another day in that claustrophobic office he's gonna tackle Oikawa over a desk out of sheer sexual frustration. 

His phone rings, startling him out of contemplating his semi. 

It's Megumi, his cousin, checking to make sure he's coming to her wedding next week. 

"Yeah," he says, "yeah, wouldn't miss it for the world." 

"Fantastic!" she chirps. "I think it'll do you some good to get away from that job for a while." 

"I think so too," he tells her, head full of Oikawa, smiling, Oikawa bending over a desk to reach some files on the other side, Oikawa's long neck gulping as he drinks cold coffee, Oikawa in the shower, wet, beckoning, Oikawa, Oikawa, Oikawa. "I really do."

––––––––––– 

Iwaizumi remembers with perfect sparkling clarity the day they met.

"Hello?" he’d said, and then, seeing the office for the first time, "Jesus." 

The room was an oppressive box of dark wood, made more cramped by the stacks and stacks of manila files spilling out of filing cabinets or tied together with shoelaces or pinned to the walls. Iwaizumi's first impression was: _it smells a little like crazy in here._

"Just leave it somewhere, money's on the filing cabinet," said the tall man on the other side of the room. Iwaizumi could only see his back, facing a huge chart pinned on the wall next to a bunch of coroner closeup photos of assorted organs. 

"Excuse me?" 

The man turned around, and Iwaizumi had to suck in a breath. Oikawa Tooru may have photographed well in his file, but in person he was blindingly attractive. 

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I thought you were the takeout delivery guy." He rushed over to shake hands. "Agent Iwaizumi, right? The office is a total wreck right now, my bad, I swear it's just because of this case– I'm so overworked right now, sorry, that desk's supposed to be yours–" 

"It's fine." Iwaizumi held up a hand. "I can get settled in tomorrow. First order of business is you tell me what the hell it is you do." 

"Huh?" Oikawa cocked his head to the side like a spaniel. It was a weirdly childish gesture to see on someone who was six full feet of model material. 

"What exactly are the X files? The higher ups never told me. Said you'd explain. I'm kind of in the dark here." He made no effort to hide his frustration. He'd been shunted across the country into this cramped, messy office with someone he's never met to do work he knows nothing about. 

"Oh," said Oikawa Tooru, deflating visibly. "Okay. Well then." He rubbed his temple. "We're gonna need a drink." 

Fact one about Oikawa Tooru: he keeps a flask in his desk. When Iwaizumi declined disapprovingly, he just shrugged and drank straight from the flask. 

"So. Officially, the X Files," Oikawa said, steepling his fingers, "are cases deemed unsolvable or given minimum-priority status by the Bureau." 

"But?" Iwaizumi prompted. 

Oikawa closed his eyes. "The majority of them deal with unexplained phenomena. Designated officially as – " his voice took on a bitter tone – "'fringe pseudo-scientific theories and non-credible evidence of paranormal activity.'" 

He opened his eyes, waiting for the ball to drop. 

"Science fiction?" Iwaizumi dropped it. 

"Sure," he said. "Why not. 'Science fiction.' They finally send me a partner, and I get another goddamn skeptic. Great." 

Iwaizumi bristled. "I'm a doctor and forensic pathologist with a degree in physics and two years in the Bureau. Sorry I don't believe in the Loch Ness monster." 

"Ooh, a doctor!" Oikawa brightened. "We'll talk about Nessie later, I've got some stuff that'll change your mind – but for now, come check these out, doc. Maybe you can be useful after all." He beamed, swiveling towards the photos on the wall. 

Iwaizumi pushed down an overwhelming urge to punch Oikawa. It wouldn't be the last.

––––––––––– 

He'd promised to go drinking with Oikawa tonight, because once Oikawa realized he was leaving he had kicked up a huge fuss and insisted they "do something with our last hours together, Iwa-chan, because how will I cope without you, I’ll be utterly miserable, I’m going to get _sniped_ or something" ignoring the fact that it would only be one fucking week.

So when he hears someone lean on the horn outside he sticks his head out his window and flips Oikawa off before going downstairs. He gets in the shitty little red Lariat Oikawa drives, which is affectionately named Laura, after some dead person in some boring cult David Lynch show Oikawa loves.

Oikawa beams at him. "You're looking downright _tasty_ tonight, Iwa-chan." 

"Eyes on the road, not on the goods." 

"Does that mean I can ogle you all I want later?" 

"I'm armed." 

Oikawa just laughs and runs a yellow light.

––––––––––– 

The beers Hanamaki’s holding froth mouthwateringly, but Iwaizumi frowns. "I have to leave early tomorrow, you guys."

"Yeah, and that's like a whole day away." Oikawa points out. 

“The man has a point,” Hanamaki agrees, sliding one of the glasses towards Iwaizumi. 

"I'm super jealous that you get to to to a wedding and I don't, so you pretty much owe it to me to get shitfaced tonight,” Oikawa says. 

“Why?” Iwaizumi takes a sip. “Weddings are kind of the worst.” 

“I LOVE weddings,” Oikawa says. “It’s not fair. I should go in your stead.” 

Matsukawa smirks. “You’re just worried Iwaizumi won’t catch the bouquet.” 

Oikawa flushes and kicks him under the table as Hanamaki dissolves in giggles. Iwaizumi grins into his beer and pretends he has no idea what they mean.

––––––––––– 

They're not exactly shitfaced as they make their way back – neither of them are that young anymore – but the three or four drinks he had are definitely doing their best to trip Iwaizumi up as they walk back to Oikawa's place.

Iwaizumi watches him with a fascination he can't explain, watches his closest friend in the world (he's hammered, so he can admit it) hum drunkenly as he fumbles to unlock the four different locks he has installed. 

He deadbolts all of them back in place once they're inside, like the obsessive he is. The apartment is a fucking wreck, as per usual; stacks of files everywhere, reference books bookmarked with classified papers, yellow legal pads scribbled on and crumpled up and used to wipe up coffee stains. There's no lights on, but the wide picture window fills the room with clean bright moonlight. Iwaizumi shoves some floppy discs off the couch and collapses onto it. 

"Here." Oikawa sets down a couple glasses of water on the coffee table. "Want any food?" 

"No." 

"Then scoot over." 

He doesn't. Oikawa belly flops on top of him and snuggles close. It should be uncomfortable, since they're both still in button-downs and jeans, but the fuzz of alcohol just makes Oikawa seem warm and solid against him. Iwaizumi curls an arm around Oikawa's neck and watches the view of the highway for a while, a stream of ruby-red brake lights in the distance. Oikawa's telescope – a nice high-powered one, no toy – is lined with silvery light, and Iwaizumi imagines him crouching over it all night, squinting, scanning star systems for whatever it is he's so desperate to find. The moon is a fat round silver dollar in the sky. Oikawa breathes evenly against his side. 

After a couple minutes, Oikawa speaks up. 

"I'm a little worried," he murmurs, carefully shaping his words around the beer on his breath, "that we may be stretching the definition of a professional relationship." 

Iwaizumi's glad the lights are off. "You know, Oikawa, I don't think you're worried about that at all." 

He can feel Oikawa's smile curving against his shoulder. "Gee, whatever would give you that impression?"

"I could make an educated guess that you purposely got us drunk at a bar close to your house to lure me here," he yawns. 

"Iwa," he says sleepily, "I treasure our longstanding sexual tension and would never ever take advantage of it." 

He smiles, stroking his hand through that soft hair. "Sure, you nutjob." 

"'M a nutjob but you're a... you're a... narc." 

"I'm literally not a narcotics agent." 

"That's exactly what a narc would say." 

"Shut up. I know you have pot under the couch." 

"Case in point," Oikawa mumbles into his shoulder, and falls asleep. 

Iwaizumi lies awake watching the little red river of the highway for a long, long time.

––––––––––– 

_beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep._ Iwaizumi’s phone chirps directly in his ear. Groaning, he shoves Oikawa off of himself and into the floor with a heavy thump. His partner mumbles something and goes straight back to sleep on the floor. Iwaizumi privately thinks it should be illegal for someone to look so good while unshowered, unconscious, and copiously drooling.

His phone beeps angrily again. Iwaizumi cusses, dumps a blanket onto Oikawa’s sleeping body, steals a stale blueberry bagel, and books it towards the door.

––––––––––– 

The plane smells like sweat and cologne. Iwaizumi’s headache pulses steadily and his legs are already cramping up, but at least he’s in a window seat. Sunlit clouds tower above him and patchwork fields roll by below. Being up in the sky reminds Iwaizumi strongly of Oikawa. If he were here, he’d be shoving rudely into Iwaizumi’s space to see out the window, scanning the ground for crop circles and the sky for chemtrails. Or he’d be hitting on every stewardess that passed by. Or he’d be stealing Iwaizumi’s complimentary peanuts and throwing them at the man snoring two seats ahead, like the irritating little shit he is.

Iwaizumi sighs and closes his eyes. He knows he could ask for a transfer at pretty much any time. His record is impeccable, he's a highly useful Bureau agent whose skills are in constant demand, and there's probably much higher-paying stations waiting for him. Leaving would be logical, since at the rate they both get kidnapped or shot at or threatened with death via fax machine one or both of them will be dead within the year. 

Not to mention he still can't fucking stand Oikawa; his partner is infuriating and paranoid and constantly makes snap decisions that put both their necks at risk, and trying to do his own job while keeping Oikawa's shit in check is exhausting.

But.

He hasn’t. He could go, but he hasn’t, and the prospect grows smaller daily. Maybe because he's pretty sure that if he was gone, Oikawa wouldn't last a week. Maybe he's still nursing a faint curiosity about the stacks and stacks of files in their office, the ones that sound like sci-fi and the ones that sound like pulp horror slasher flicks. Maybe he knows deep down that after a job like this he'd get bored instantly doing procedural work or data entry or whatever the fuck. If he left, he'd be totally unsatisfied with anything else. 

_With anyone else,_ says a part of his brain, and Iwaizumi mentally draws his SIG-Sauer and shoots that thought dead until it stops twitching. 

God fucking damn it, he thinks, crumpling his empty little packet of peanuts. Oikawa Tooru's ruined me for life.

––––––––––– 

Iwaizumi forces himself to shift focus away from Oikawa and towards their current case. Something’s been bothering him about it. He turns the evidence over and over in his head – the tiny forest fire, the headless, armless corpse. The symbol on the body and the tree. He hates having so little information, and the stuff they do have is frustratingly strange. Give him a good straightforward murder any day. Irritatingly, it’s the kind of case Oikawa loves: mystery, vague occult symbols, radiation, a body without identifying marks. It’s perfect. He’s probably over the moon that Iwaizumi’s out of town too, so that there’s no one getting in the way of him diving headfirst into his craziest theories about the case.

Hold on. The case almost seems _too_ perfect for Oikawa. Iwaizumi chews on the inside of his lip, trying to figure out if he’s being paranoid or not. Sure, all their cases are this freaky, but this one’s right in their backyard. And then the body shows up _the next day?_ A body without fingerprints or dental records? And Iwaizumi’s out of town. 

That thought drives an icicle into his gut. Oikawa’s got enemies, and not just because of his garbage personality. There’s more than a few shadowy higher-ups who wanna keep the guy quiet. What if the whole thing’s a set-up, coordinated to happen during the three days Iwaizumi’s not with him? 

_Get ahold of yourself, Hajime._ He’s just a paranoid bastard. He tells himself that no matter what, he can’t do a thing until they land. Then he’ll call Oikawa. It’ll be fine.

––––––––––– 

Oikawa’s phone goes to voicemail.

Iwaizumi stands in the airport terminal stewing in frustration. He was looking forward to a nice break from work, to enjoying Megumi’s wedding, and now he’s worried about some complex deep-state plot to assassinate his partner. God, it sounds like something Oikawa would come up with and here he is, having to talk himself out of thinking it’s true. 

He leaves Oikawa a message and then calls Hanamaki and leaves him one too for good measure. It can’t hurt. And, he reminds himself, it’ll be fine.

––––––––––– 

He reties his bowtie for probably the eighth time. The stupid thing just won’t end up even. He gives up and decides it’s just gonna look crooked, and thinks that for once it’d be useful to have Oikawa around.

His face in the mirror looks creased with worry, even to himself. He can’t get his own stupid conspiracy theory out of his head. The only person at the station who’d picked up a phone was Ushijima, who had flatly told him that everything was business as usual and to enjoy his time away, and after _that_ conversation Iwaizumi had nearly punched a hole through a door like he was fifteen and boiling with adolescent rage again. 

He tells himself that he’s letting the job take over his life and he’s at a wedding to celebrate and he’s gonna have a good time or else. Iwaizumi has gotten very good at compartmentalizing.

––––––––––– 

Another snapshot Iwaizumi remembers: the moment he started taking Oikawa seriously.

They were conducting a routine interview with a suspect. When Iwaizumi had excused himself to piss, they were grilling the suspect on his fake license plates. When he got back, Oikawa was in a high-volume shouting match with the perp about fucking _aliens,_ because of course. Iwaizumi just watched, fuming, through the one-way mirror. The suspect was practically taunting Oikawa, and it was working, Oikawa getting angrier and angrier. Iwaizumi was on the verge of going in to put a stop to the nonsense when Oikawa had lashed out and slapped the perp across the face. 

Iwaizumi was in the room and on him in a second, dragging his partner out by the back of his coat. The perp watched openmouthed and staring. Detectives and beat cops stared too as Iwaizumi hauled him out of the station and out into the street. 

“Let – _go of me.”_ Oikawa twisted out of Iwaizumi’s grip and took off, long legs moving faster than Iwaizumi could keep with. 

"You ass," he'd yelled. "You absolute – you fucking – Oikawa, you useless piece of shit!" 

Oikawa whipped around, coat swirling. "Yeah, Iwa-chan, that’s me! The fuck-up! Thanks for the reminder!" 

"We follow procedure for a reason, you dipshit!" The street was silent. Fog hung thick and heavy in the night, and Iwaizumi pulsed with anger. 

"Fuck procedure." 

He shot right back. "Fuck you. And fuck your conspiracy bullshit. I don't know what in hell you were thinking in there, but you might have completely jeopardized this case. You might get fucking sued. One of these days you will, if you don't lay off this whackjob shit." 

Oikawa laughed, an awful high hysterical sound. "Iwa-chan, have you met me?” He had a horrible sort of smile. “Have you seen my fucking office? You think I can drop this? You think my little obsession isn't _personal?"_

"I," Hajime stumbled over his thoughts, tongue dry. He’s never thought about where the whackjob theories came from. It’s always just been a facet of Oikawa’s bizarre personality. He'd never seen his partner like this. "What?" 

Oikawa took a deep breath. "I had a nephew."

He cut an impressive figure, Iwaizumi's brain thought irrationally, under the brassy gold glow of the streetlamps. Tall, beautiful. Miserable. 

"Takeru. More like a little brother, really, since he was born when I was seven or eight. My sister was out of town so often that we spent a lot of time together. When he was eleven and I was seventeen, there was... it was the middle of the night, my parents saw part of it but didn't– they don't believe in–" 

He swallowed, grinding to a halt. "Abducted. His file says 'kidnapped.' You can look my testimony up if you want to know the whole thing." 

Oikawa's lips were drawn tight, his eyes bright with exhaustion. Iwaizumi suddenly realized that he'd caught glimpses of this expression before, moments when Oikawa's cheer slipped and his raw, terrifying intensity was visible. 

"You don't have to believe me," he said finally, looking away from Iwaizumi. "But it's the truth." 

Iwaizumi’s throat felt dry. “I’m sorry,” he’d said, because what else was there to say? 

"Yeah, well." Oikawa shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets. "Not looking for sympathy, just answers." 

“I hate to be that guy, Oikawa, but… I don’t know if you’ll find any answers.” 

He’d smiled, slightly. A tired smile. “Oh, Iwaizumi. You think I don’t know that?” 

Something about his voice made the moment feel too raw, too close, overwhelming. It was Iwaizumi’s turn to look away.

––––––––––– 

The wedding is lovely, light streaming down through the stained glass ceiling and sprays of flowers cascading everywhere. Iwaizumi greets all his distant family members as he makes his way to his seat in the pews, cramming in between some ancient great-aunts who pinch his cheeks with their wrinkly hands and tell him it’s so good to see him, he looks so healthy and is he working too hard? Does he have anyone special in his life? Is Hajime-kun thinking about kids yet?

They release him only when the band starts up and Iwaizumi lets out a giant sigh of relief. Does he have anyone special in his life? His brain pulls up an image of Oikawa, asleep on his desk, drooling on a pile of Polaroids and candy wrappers. He shakes it off with a shudder. The violins swell and Megumi walks in, thank God, and she looks radiant, beaming and blushing in white. Iwaizumi’s genuinely happy for her, and when she looks over and catches his eye he grins wide. Finally, all the irritation and worry falls away, and– 

His phone vibrates in his pocket. 

_Fuck._

He ignores it until the buzzing goes quiet, but it goes off again as she steps up to stand with the groom, and just fucking keeps ringing as the priest starts to talk. Then he gets a couple more solitary buzzes that he knows are texts. His phone feels glowing-hot against his leg. His worry finally overrides his embarrassment and he pulls his phone out, ignoring the old ladies glaring poison-tipped daggers at him. 

**Hanamaki**  
_got the blood tests back, no abnormal WBC, everything else normal too, you were wrong. lol scrub_

**Hanamaki**  
_took another look at the lesions too, we don’t think they were radiation at all, maybe someone just made it look like it was?_

**Hanamaki**  
_also got your voicemail but El Dickhead isn’t here today, i’ll call u if he shows up_

Iwaizumi feels a jolt in his chest. If the radiation damage isn’t actually radiation damage – and Oikawa’s not there – 

He can’t help it, it’s like a physical yank dragging him out of his seat and tearing down the aisle, not even hearing the offended exclamations of his aunts and twice removed cousins as he runs full tilt up the aisle, slams against the heavy wooden doors and then he’s outside, gasping. 

"Sir?" Says a confused valet, halfway into a car. Iwaizumi hauls him out of it by his velvet bowtie, flings himself into the driver’s seat, and pulls a neat 180. 

"Sir!" He ignores the valet wailing in the rearview mirror, jerking the car east onto the highway like a maniac. Iwaizumi's not a praying man, but he sends up a silent _don't you fucking dare let him die_ and stomps on the gas. 

He does not drive like a federal employee. He drives with fear pumping loud in his bloodstream, weaving through cars on the highway the way a normal, sane Iwaizumi never would. He’s glad beyond words that the tank’s almost full, because he pushes the speedometer farther and farther to the right. The normal drive is over three hours. At this rate he’s gonna make it in under two. It feels like time is slipping away and he’s gonna be too late, it’s gonna be too late. 

Finally, he squeals around the corner and slams on the brakes in front of the police station. He sprints inside and makes a beeline to the pathology lab. 

“Iwaizumi?” Matsukawa’s eyes go wide. “What the hell?” 

“Oikawa,” he pants. “Where is he?” 

“Uh, in the field, I guess.” He gestures vaguely towards the door with the bloodied scalpel in his hand. “He said he had some lead on the ‘crash landing.’ Whatever that is. Dude, can I ask–” 

“Do you know where he went? When?” 

Masukawa frowns. “Uh, half an hour, maybe? No idea where. He had hiking boots on, though.” 

That’s enough information for Iwaizumi to go on. He runs back outside, jumps back in the still-running car, and speeds out of town and up into the mountains. Last time he was on this road he’d been in the passenger seat. He remembers with a chill: bitching at Oikawa for taking the curves too fast, both of them scarfing down a bucket of fried chicken balanced next to the gearshift. Oikawa licking salt and grease from his long fingers. Iwaizumi turning away to watch rows and rows of trees roll past, because sometimes his partner was too much. Especially when he toned down his million-watt fake smile and was real instead, snort-laughing at Iwaizumi’s jokes and doing shitty impressions of Ushijima. 

Sometimes it’s okay. Sometimes it’s like looking into the sun. 

He guns the car off the paved road and onto a bumpy gravel path, urging it until the trees push in too close. Then he gets out, pulling his sidearm out from under his jacket. He doesn’t even feel his dress shoes pinching or the branches scraping as he shoves his way through the underbrush. 

“OIKAWA, YOU IDIOT!” he yells, knowing it’s a bad idea to give his position away. _“OIKAWA!”_ Nothing. The branches abruptly drop away into the scorched, circular clearing they’d come to see before. 

It’s empty. His heart pounds. There are footprints in the ash, but they’re all mashed and indistinct, tangled. _Fuck._ Did he go to the wrong place? Should he have headed to Oikawa’s apartment instead? He starts to weigh plans in his head, calculating his next steps– 

“Iwaizumi? Is that you?” 

His breath catches. Oikawa ducks a fallen log, entering the charred circle. He has leaves stuck in his soft auburn hair but looks undamaged. 

“Holy shit,” he breathes out in a rush. “You’re alive.” 

“Iwa… you wanna explain?” 

Iwaizumi looks down at himself. He’s wearing a three-piece suit, bowtie and all. He’s heaving for breath. His gun is in his hand. 

He takes a deep breath, puts the gun back in his shoulder holster, and punches Oikawa in the stomach.

––––––––––– 

Iwaizumi explains everything on the drive back. (Oikawa gets one look at the convertible and decides he’s driving.) It seems strange that he ever felt like he had to look away from Oikawa: now it feels like he couldn’t even if he wanted to, watching the various expressions of shock that cross his face as Iwaizumi explains why he thought something was off about the case.

Oikawa takes them back to his own apartment since Iwaizumi doesn’t even have his keys. Iwaizumi feels lightheaded going up the stairs. After hours of panic, Oikawa’s presence beside him feels like whole-body relief. 

“So,” Oikawa says, unlocking the first of all the deadbolts on his ridiculous door. “Let me get this straight.” 

“Mm?” Iwaizumi leans against the doorframe. 

“You left your cousin’s wedding _while she was saying her vows?_ Because you had a _hunch?”_

He winces. “I... guess so, yeah.” 

“You stole a car? A really nice car?” Oikawa’s working on lock #3, not looking at him. 

Iwaizumi nods. 

“And you drove here in two hours, going approximately... “ he pauses, doing the math. “Twice the speed limit?” 

“Yeah.” 

Oikawa’s done unlocking the door but he’s just standing there, fiddling with his keys. He’s still not looking at Iwaizumi. 

“For me?” 

Iwaizumi’s reply sticks in his throat. He could say a lot of things. _Of course, you’re my partner. No problem, but you owe me a drink. I hate weddings anyway._

Instead, he just says “Oikawa,” and hates that his voice breaks a little bit, hates the open-nerve rawness of the moment. 

He finally looks at him. “Iwaizumi,” he says. “Listen. I – uh.” He reaches for the words and can’t quite do it, just looks at him with those huge hazel eyes, searching. 

Iwaizumi is wobbly with exhaustion and relief and too goddamn tired to pretend anymore. He pulls Oikawa in by the front of his shirt and kisses him, a long, soft kiss, so he knows Oikawa understands him and he won’t have to trip over words trying to explain what he means. 

“Oh,” Oikawa breathes against his lips. 

Iwaizumi smiles and pulls him back in again and he goes willingly, pressing Iwaizumi against the doorframe, kissing back with the same bottled-up intensity. Oikawa’s so warm. Iwaizumi runs his hands along his sides, his back, up the length of his arms, making sure he’s here and alive under his palms. His mouth is hot on Iwaizumi’s. He can’t think of anything outside of Oikawa, here and now, kissing him like it’s all _he’s_ wanted to do for the past year too. 

Oikawa pulls back. “Inside?” He says roughly. He looks kind of wrecked. It’s a good look. _Inside,_ Iwaizumi realizes dumbly, is where the couch is. And the bed. His gut heats up, low, and he suddenly doesn’t feel tired at all. 

Oikawa opens his front door and pulls him in. Iwaizumi can’t help but smile when Oikawa only re-locks one of the deadbolts instead of all of them. He thinks he can see his hands shaking. 

“Listen, Iwa,” he says, turning around. “I’m not – I don’t know.” 

It sends a pang through him to see Oikawa looking so vulnerable. “What’s up?” 

“I just don’t. I don’t know, Iwaizumi.” He reaches up to straighten Iwaizumi’s bowtie. 

“What don’t you know?” 

“Are you sure you’re not.” He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Making a mistake?” 

Iwaizumi laughs. It makes Oikawa recoil like he’s been stung, but he can’t help it. After all the shit he’s been through today, all the stress and fear, and now Oikawa’s worried about this – the simplest thing. The easiest thing. 

He puts his hands on Oikawa’s shoulders. “Idiot,” he says, very gently. “I’m not making a mistake.” 

“Are you sure? I’m a lot to deal with.” 

He laughs again. “You think anyone knows that better than me?” He reaches up, drags a thumb across Oikawa’s cheek. “You think I would’ve stuck around so long if I didn’t–” 

_If I didn’t want you too,_ is how he means to finish that, but the smile spreading slow and bright across Oikawa’s face derails him. 

Oikawa starts to lean in again, and Iwaizumi’s fully down with this plan, but something catches the corner of his eye. He opens them again and sees a bright red point on Oikawa’s ear, a tiny jumping light. 

His brain reacts at lightspeed and he throws himself bodily against Oikawa just as a crack splits the air. They both hit the ground rolling, Iwaizumi shoving Oikawa behind the couch at the same time as Oikawa yanks him down. 

Glass tinkles and his ears ring. The wide glass window is shattered, letting a gentle breeze curl into the apartment. Iwaizumi’s exhaustion is gone like it was never there, replaced by the even alertness they drilled into him at the academy. He flicks his eyes over to Oikawa. His sidearm is drawn, pointed up at the ceiling, and he looks all business as he crouches low to peer around the sofa. 

“Ex fucking _scuse_ me,” Oikawa mutters under his breath. “You okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Iwaizumi replies, and then looks down at his arm. There’s a hole in the sleeve of his suit jacket with a dark wetness spreading out from it. “Shit,” he says. It’s his only suit. 

Then he looks up. Oikawa’s got a look in his eyes he’s never seen before. It’s uniquely terrifying. Whoever the sniper is, Iwaizumi thinks numbly over the spreading pain, that guy is fucked. 

Then he blacks out.

––––––––––– 

Iwaizumi blinks, clean white light flooding his eyes.

He feels like he’s extra heavy, a sort of whole-body glueyness that he recognizes as a sign of being on some serious-business painkillers. He’s okay with that.

He flexes his arm experimentally and it sends a twinge of pain up through the haze. He tries to move the other one, the uninjured one, and finds that he can’t. It’s also really warm. Iwaizumi looks down directly into a very familiar head of brown hair. 

Oh. Oikawa is sleeping on his chest. 

He closes his eyes, smiling, and drifts back out.

––––––––––– 

––––––––––– 

––––––––––– 

EPILOGUE 

Iwaizumi sits at his desk in the station, arm in a sling, talking to Megumi on the phone. She’s been wonderful about all of it, really, truly wonderful, considering that from her point of view he’d caused a commotion during her sacred moment and then, uh, stolen a convertible from her uncle-in-law.

She laughs at him pretty much the entire way through the conversation, and so does Oikawa, who’s perched on Iwaizumi’s desk next to him. He’s snickering and folding pieces of paper into paper airplanes without even looking at them first to see if they’re important or not. 

“Okay, Hajime,” she says, her latest laughing fit subsiding. “So the arm’s gonna be fine, you big hero?” 

“Ooo, Mr. Big Hero,” Oikawa murmurs, batting his lashes. Iwaizumi throws a pen cap at him and mouths _shut up._

“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “The shot just went through muscle, missed the bone by a few millimeters. It should heal up fine in a few weeks.”

“I’m so glad,” she says with feeling. “What about the guy? The shooter?” Oikawa throws a paper plane that glides up and gets stuck in the lamp. Iwaizumi pokes him hard in the thigh, glaring, and Oikawa squeaks and grabs his hand. 

“He’s going on trial tomorrow,” he tells Megumi. “I don’t think he’ll get out of some serious jail time.” 

“Hajime, don’t get me wrong, I’m so glad you saved your partner and that you’re okay,” she says, shifting to seriousness. “But – it sounds so dangerous, you know? 

“I guess so,” Iwaizumi says. Oikawa’s still holding onto his hand. 

“Can I just ask… is your work really worth it?” 

He looks up and Oikawa’s looking back, biting his lip. Iwaizumi feels a pang in his chest, a hot choke of emotion that closes his throat up for a minute. 

“Yeah,” he finally says. He squeezes the warm hand in his own and watches a smile bloom bright across Oikawa’s face. “Yeah, it really is.”


End file.
